


caeci sunt oculi

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Heavy Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 02:12:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9577604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: An argument at an outpost escalates. Ignis is less forgiving than he used to be.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/155588937822/may-i-request-a-fic-of-the-cbocobros-out-and-about) for an anonymous request.

Everyone was on edge. World-wide disaster had a different effect on different people. It brought out their best or their worst; unified or divided. There was no “right” response to one day waking up to the golden brilliance of a sunrise, then waking up the next to a canvas of darkness. Ignis understood that sensation all too well, understood the panic of utter blindness, the hollowness of the void it opened up at the bottom of your chest. Even after five long years of growing accustomed to living with sightlessness, he still remembered how sharp the knife of dread felt, twisting into his gut, the moment he opened his eyes to nothingness.

Which was why he empathized with the fuzzy stranger, slurring his words somewhere in front of him. While Ignis was certain he would never see again the way he used to, as time passed, some semblance of vision was slowly shedding gray light unto his dark world. Bruises of blacks and grays gave a vague indication of nearby objects. He’d been training himself to detect movement in the muddled shapes as well, taking the small changes to his sight in stride. He was even beginning to feel confident enough that he could wield a dagger again, had been working on fighting with them at closer quarters than when he’d been younger.

So when the stranger stumbled up to him with a hundred condemnations, cycling through a litany of reasons why it was his fault that the rightful King of Lucis was gone and had doomed them all to an eternity of darkness, Ignis wasn’t angry. He wasn’t enraged by the man’s accusation that maybe if the tactician could have seen more than five inches in front of him, he wouldn’t have let the Prince slip through his fingers. He wasn’t hurt by the comment on how he’d been blind to the danger long before he’d lost his vision. The man was scared. They were all scared. People coped with fear in different ways. Not all of them were necessarily productive.

Ignis didn’t mind the misplaced wrath. It was nothing he hadn’t already told himself a thousand times every night that he didn’t sleep, imagining terrible visions of what had become of Noctis since they’d lost him to the Crystal. It was only when the stranger turned his anger onto his friends that Ignis ceased to tolerate his behavior.

“…And you!” Ignis felt Prompto stiffen beside him and simultaneously felt his own blood go cold. “I guess it’s no wonder we lost Caelum when all else he had was a failed Crownsguard” – he spat at Gladiolus – “and some stupid street-rat to look out for him. What a joke!”

Neither Gladiolus nor Prompto tried to defend themselves. Maybe five years ago, Gladiolus would have puffed up his chest, straightened up to his full imposing height, and provoked the guy into a fight. Maybe five years ago, Prompto would have laughed nervously, put his hands up in surrender, and tried to placate the man. But, Noctis’s disappearance had broken all of them in. Now, Ignis merely heard the strain of muscle as Gladiolus silently clenched his fists at his sides. Now, Ignis merely saw the vague imprint of Prompto dropping his head to his chest in defeat.

Maybe five years ago, all Ignis would have done to a mean drunk was step between him and Gladiolus before he got punched, politely direct him back to the bar he’d crawled off of, and offer to treat him to another drink. But, Noctis disappearing had broken him, too. And not in the guilt-ridden way it had broken his brothers.

Ignis’s arm lashed out and shoved at a shoulder, pushing the man down into the chair behind him. There was an outraged garble and a hiccup of fright when a dagger, drawn from the unseen power of an absent king, was pulled to his chin. Ignis stared into where he thought the man’s eyes were, a hand coiled around his wrist, the point of his dagger just barely grazing the stubble on his chin. He couldn’t tell if the man was afraid that a blind man had a dagger on him because he _couldn’t_ see or because he _could_. Whether or not he was afraid that Ignis’s hand would slip or “slip,” Ignis didn’t rightly care. If he’d been afraid of the Starscourge before, Ignis would give him something else to be even more afraid of.

His voice pitched low, full of his own denouncements and far more dangerous in their articulation than this stranger’s incoherent ramblings.

“The daemons come closer to our outposts every day. People are disappearing, dead or daemons themselves already. And what are you doing while they do, hm? Hiding at the bottom of a bottle? Waiting to make a scene instead of make a difference? It doesn’t take a pair of eyes to see that while we fight every day to make sure there’s a world left for the King to save, you’ve already given yourself up to the Darkness.”

A hand touched his arm – long fingers, calloused on the index from pulling a thousand triggers. “Come on Iggy,” Prompto entreated.

The drunk growled, voice shaking, breath hot and sour in Ignis’s face as he asked, “What King? The line of Lucis died with Prince Noctis. Any hope of light we had died long before him with the Oracle, too. No one’s coming to save this world. The Gods have forsaken us by taking them both.”

The outpost was silent, a heavy, somber shroud covering all of the hunters and refugees dotted around the ramshackle shelter. The man spoke for a lot of them. The world had ceased its prayers the day Lunafreya died. There was no one left to hear them. When the darkness covered the skies, and the throne of Lucis did not seat the prophesized King, the last flicker of salvation that may have burned after the Oracle had parted was snuffed out. Hope was as black as the infected air they all breathed.

Ignis drew away from the man, who hung his head in despair, as lost and withdrawn as the people around him. He could feel pity everywhere in the small space, and rather than contribute to it, the feeling only made Ignis’s anger simmer that much more. He spun the dagger over in his hand, quick, deft movements built from grueling hours of practicing to regain the same feeling he’d once had wielding the weapon when he could see.

“This is a blade from the Royal Armiger,” he announced to the room, letting it vanish and reappear to and from the crystalline ether. “It came when I called for it the day Noctis disappeared, and it has never failed to return to me since. Just like His Highness. Noctis _is_ alive. He will return and he _will_ bring back the light.”

“How much longer are we expected to wait?” a different voice said from the small crowd. “It could be a hundred years before he comes back. All of us will be dead without ever seeing a shred of light again.”

A soft murmur of agreement followed. How much darker would it get before the King of Light deemed the world broken enough to fix? How many more loved ones would be dragged into the shadows before they earned his salvation?

Ignis stabbed his dagger into the table, just shy of the startled drunk’s arm. He was cursed for that, but the insult didn’t sting nearly as much as he hoped his next words would.

“Even if that’s true, even if the world goes on in darkness long after we’re all gone, are all of you that selfish that you won’t even _try_ to fight? Are you just going to sit here like pigs lined up for the slaughter, expecting a savior to stop the knife from slitting your throats? You would all dishonor the memory of those who died before us by doing _nothing_ to save yourselves?”

“Ignis,” Gladiolus’s voice was rough with a feeling Ignis couldn’t really define. The swordsman’s hand pressed to his shoulder, dissuading him from going any further.

That infuriating silence seeped throughout the room like poison again. Ignis shook off Gladiolus’s hand and let the dagger dissipate. Even if all he could see were odd amorphous shapes, he couldn’t have seen the way more clearly as he marched out of the outpost.

“If you want to roll over and die, stay here,” he said to the room as he left. “If you want to fight, follow us to Hammerhead. No matter how long it takes, I’d rather survive on a fool’s bargain than die blind to the existence of hope.”


End file.
